Archives: Artists

Gasper Nali is a not-so-traditional babatoni player from the small town of Nkhata Bay on the shores of Lake Malawi. The babatoni is an African one-string home-made 3-metre long bass guitar, and with a stick and an empty beer bottle, together with a cow skin kick drum and catchy melodies, he creates the most amazing and danceable original Afro Beats possible!

Gasper’s unique style of Kwela music has received an extraordinary amount of online attention after a video of him playing by the lake shore went viral with over 20 million views. He has been featured by CNN and in the documentary ‘Deep Roots Malawi’, jammed with Joss Stone, appeared on Wired for Sound – Malawi, remixed by Aroop Roy for Sol Power Sounds and been played by Iggy Pop on BBC 6! His debut album, Abale Ndikuwuzeni, roughly translates to ‘People, I want to tell you’. It is a fitting title as Gasper’s songs, all sung in the Malawi national language of Chichewa, talk about life and strife in the country, often including social issues such as the rich and the poor, child marriages etc.

Gasper has toured the UK and Europe several times since his breakthrough video, playing in all environments from seated arts centres spaces to major festival stages. In 2025, Gasper transformed his customary one-man-band show into a 3-piece band for the very first time in the UK. Along for the ride is Malawi born songsmith and cultural proponent Luhangah on additional vocals and percussion, as well as Gasper’s long-time producer and collaborator Mattias Stålnacke on guitars, and released his new record “Chule Chule Iwe”.

Heritage Orchestra is the orchestra that rocks out arenas, messes with other peoples music, and keeps orchestral tradition in the cellar. Since 2004 this renegade ensemble has written it’s own music, veered wildly between genres, and collaborated with a diverse and high profile array of artists.

It has embraced sound, visual, and adaptive music technology in ways that make other orchestras recoil in fear, and still they don’t play any classical repertoire.

Are you sure they’re an orchestra?

MBM loves The Heritage Orchestra as they defy classical tradition while bringing the power of the orchestra to amazing projects that explore music.

Hugh Masekela is an international star and one of the most charismatic figures in South African culture.

He has been the heart and soul of South African music for forty years – even though he spent most of those years in enforced exile. His trumpet has been an instrument of resistance, a call to freedom and a celebration of the resilience of his people. His music has mourned the tragedy of apartheid and rejoiced at its demise.

Hugh Masekela is South Africa’s most enduring musical ambassador with music that brims over with a contagious, joyful warmth and optimism. “The man with the horn” is a living legend and a great performer.

Jessica is an internationally acclaimed BAFTA-winning composer of contemporary classical music and is also co-founder of renowned games company The Chinese Room. She often writes for unusual spaces and her work has been performed in diverse and high-profile venues such as The Old Vic Tunnels, The Barbican, Sydney Opera House, Great Ormond Street Hospital, The Wellcome Trust, MOMI New York, The Royal Opera House, Sage Gateshead and Durham Cathedral.

The Washington Post have described her music as “stupendous” and The Guardian recently praised her “gorgeous orchestral score” for ‘Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture’ which was also voted in to the Classic FM Hall of Fame 2016 and was named soundtrack of the year by MOJO magazine and sat in the Top 10 of both the Official and Classic FM charts for several weeks.

Jessica wrote the music for the genre-defying ‘Dear Esther’, which won awards for Best Audio at the TIGA’s, a GANG award and nominations for Best Audio at the BAFTAs. The music went on a worldwide orchestral tour as part of Replay: Symphony of Heroes. The sold-out ‘Dear Esther Live’, where the game was played real-time alongside musicians and BAFTA nominated actor Oliver Dimsdale has recently premiered at The Barbican to great acclaim.

Jessica’s music has had extensive airplay on Classic FM, as well as on radio stations and in concert halls around the world.

Following the implosion of his band The Czars and a period of six years learning to live and survive without all his former crutches Grant nailed his 2010 solo debut Queen Of Denmark. It’s been the most spectacular of journeys, from a place in time when John Grant feared he’d never make music again or escape a life of addiction, to winning awards, accolades and Top 20 chart positions, and collaborating with Sinead O’Connor, Goldfrapp, Elton John and Hercules & Love Affair. The fact he subsequently won a Best International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRITS alongside Eminem, Justin Timberlake, Bruno Mars and Drake, seemed like some fantasy dreamt up in a moment of outrageous hubris.

Music Beyond Mainstream put Grant together with The Royal Northern Sinfonia as a 34-piece orchestra for a UK tour, commissioning new songs from Grant that would be released on his third album invitingly titled Grey Tickles. The BBC also requested a session of the orchestral show with BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. It was broadcast live on 6 Music, and subsequently released by Bella Union, confirming that it was simply the latest spectacular chapter in his personal and artistic renaissance.

Ongoing health issues (not least of which is handling his HIV Positive status), still processing, “decades of brainwashing,” he says from a traumatic childhood, Grant still manages to keep fighting the good fight, and writing his way out of trouble. “I want to continue to challenge myself,” he says. “To keep collaborating, to get the sound or the direction that will take me where I need to go. To keep taking the bull by the horns.”

Ladysmith Black Mambazo first came together in the early 1960s under the gentle guidance of sweet-voiced Joseph Shabalala. His inspiration for the group came to him in a dream in which a choir of children sang and danced, and he soon transferred that dream to reality when he formed Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Ladysmith is the name of Joseph’s hometown. Black being a reference to the oxen, the strongest of all farm animals; and Mambazo being the Zulu word for chopping axe, a symbol of the group’s ability to “chop down” any singing rival who might challenge them.
 
The group borrows heavily from a traditional music called isicathamiya (is-cot-a-ME-Ya), which developed in the mines of South Africa, where black workers were taken by rail to work far away from their homes and their families. Poorly housed and paid worse, the mine workers would entertain themselves after a six-day week by singing songs into the wee hours on Sunday morning. When the miners returned to the homelands, this musical tradition returned with them.
 
In the mid-1980s, Paul Simon visited South Africa and incorporated the group’s rich tenor/alto/bass harmonies into “Graceland” – a landmark recording, seminal in introducing world music to mainstream audiences. Since then, the group has been awarded two more Grammy Awards (“Raise Your Spirit Higher (2004) and “Ilembe (2009)”) and has been nominated a total of fifteen times.
 
Ladysmith Black Mambazo has recorded with numerous artists from around the world. Nelson Mandela (shortly after his release from prison) publicly stated that the members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo were “South Africa’s cultural ambassadors”.  

A new sound and message from Africa for the world

Les Amazones d’Afrique is a creative force that embraces international voices; sweet, strong harmonies that summon the rights of women and girls; and a meltdown of heritage and new gen talent. They were formed in Bamako, Mali, in 2014 by three renowned Malian music stars and social change activists, Mamani Keïta, Oumou Sangaré and Mariam Doumbia, and the col-lective has since expanded to involve many female artists from across Africa and the diaspora, including Angélique Kidjo, Nneka and rising Malian star Rokia Koné.

While their cause — campaigning for gender equality and eradicating ancestral violence — is worthy enough in itself, their musical creative expression is equally powerful. Richly melodic and far-ranging, it blends panAfrican styles and collaborative harmonies with gritty, contem-porary pop. The band’s two previous albums have garnered considerable acclaim — The Guardian’s Top 50 albums of 2017, NPR Music’s best albums of 2020, and featuring on President Obama’s playlist. They have performed on Glastonbury Festival’s Pyramid stage and featured on flagship BBC music show Later… with Jools Holland.

Following two successful albums produced by Congotronix innovator Doctor L, the band have worked with renowned pop producer Jacknife Lee (U2, Taylor Swift, Modest Mouse) to present a totally fresh new sound on their third album Musow Danse, which draws inspiration from hip-hop, trap, and electronic music.